Here’s a pretty good example, even if it doesn’t seem to be working as yet, of how the right tries to drive the framing of issues. The Dingbat of the the North tweets:
Pls refer to Jan.1 tax changes appropriately: they’re OBAMA TAX HIKES & they’ll slam every American’s savings, investments & job opportunity
Politifact debunks this, of course.
Palin and other Republicans often suggest that Obama and the Democrats want to see tax rates go up for all incomes. But that’s not what they’ve been advocating for more than two years. President Barack Obama campaigned on maintaining the tax cuts for couples earning less than $250,000 while allowing the expiration of the tax cuts for families above that line. In fact, in a Dec. 2, 2010, vote, the vast majority of House Democrats supported a bill to do precisely that, with almost all Republicans voting against the bill. (House Speaker-to-be John Boehner, R-Ohio, went so far as to call the bill "chicken crap.")
But Politifact misses the point. Blame should have been assessed relentlessly by Democrats over the last year on Republicans. The argument goes something like this:
Republicans had a chance to make the tax cuts permanent when they made them. But they couldn’t get it passed because Democrats were filibustering the cuts. So they used budget reconciliation and made them just 10 years to avoid the “Byrd rule” forbidding using reconciliation if it impacts the budget beyond 10 years. In other words, the GOP used the same tactic they accused Democrats of using to pass the health care bill. So not only are they hypocrites, they were financially reckless and pushed the budget reckoning down the road. But then, following the elephant to clean up the mess is well-known and thankless job.